one. if you have your own hit or miss send it to us at ger@foxnews.com and follow us on twitter ott ger on fnc. and that's it for all of you, and h we hope to see you here next week. >> jon: on fox news watch. >> there will be pundits and politicians warning about tyrannical authority they want to gin up fear. >> jon: and president obama with emotion and children on stage. did the media question his actions or buy into it? >> and surely finding osama bin laden and surely passing civil rights legislation and defeating the nazis was much more formidable than taking on the gun lobby. >> jon: and america's great debate giving the topic a lot of attention. but is the dehe bait

one-sided. >> i've seen the most beautiful girl i've ever met. she was just that person that i turn to. >> jon: a tear jerking story that got big attention in the media. even more when it turned out to be a hoax. how did reporters miss this one? "the washington post" makes news caught in another plagerism scandal. mr. obama holds the last news conference of his first term and takes a shot at the media for the anger in washington and on the topic of doping, lance comes clean on oprah, will it help his cause or her floundering career? >> here we are in austin, texas. >> jon: on the panel, writer and fox news contributor, judy miller, and jim pinkerton and cal thomas and kirsten powers, i'm jon scott, fox news watch is on right now.

>> this will be difficult. there will be pundits and politicians and special interest public lobbyists, publicly warning of a tyrannical all-out assault on liberty, not because that's true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves and behind the scenes they'll do everything they can to block any common sense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever. >> jon: president obama on wednesday flanked by his vice-president and four children with their parents, pushing his agenda on gun control, taking a swipe at his opponents and the media in lock step with his efforts. >> surely finding osama bin laden, surely passing civil rights legislation as lyndon johnson was able to do and before that, surely defeating the nazis was a much more formidable task than taking on

the gun lobby. >> so if we can defeat the germans in world war ii, i guess the n.r.a. is supposed to be-- is that what he's saying? >> right, he's giving himself a little bit of wiggle room. i didn't exactly compare the nra to the nazis, ste $them in the same spot and let the audience sort it out. we're sure to see, on gun owners opponents of gun control and language when you see words like nazis. george orwell in 1946 a famous essay, the word fascism should only be used for people with hitler and-- that was 1946, 70 years later we're still doing it. >> jon: do you see it differently, judy? >> not really, i thought that schieffer was very close to the line of advocacy as opposed to reading the news and being straight about a news story. i do think that even though

there was no direct comparison there's clearly an inference that the n.r.a. is equivalent to the nazis and raises questions whether or not he wasn't just a little too opinionat opinionated. >> jon: if the president said there would be outrageous claims ginning up fear among gun owners. >> yeah. >> jon: or among the population. >> i do think that a lot of people-- speaking of nazis, a lot of people, gun rights people think that obama is the next hitler and they need guns to protect themselves from his tyranny and i can't stand the p.c. stuff, it drives me crazy. and seinfeld had the soup nazi and now when you say it everyone thinks they're comparing them to gassing people and murdering 6 million jews. i think that what bob schieffer's point was if we can overcome such huge things, certainly, obama should be

able to stand up to the nra. the nra owns congress and-- >> nra is-- >> what does it matter, also the civil rights act, could pass a civil rights act, surely you could stand up to the nra. i don't think he was comparing anybody to hitler. i think any more than he was comparing them to passing the civil rights legislation thing. difficult thing, difficult thing, but this is actually less difficult than these things over here. >> jon: there was a lot of polling out this week, cal, not often noticed among it was the gallup poll approval of the n.r.a. and the president. >> the media always turned to government as a first resource instead of a last resort. we have more laws on the books regarding guns than ever now, especially in chicago where over 500 people were murdered in 2012. why isn't the president out there in chicago? the answer is not more legislation, it ends up in the homes of fatherless children

and the media there's no republican they can turn into the devil, are now going after the nra. they never talk about the law abide be citizens of the country who are not breaking the law and the more laws you pass are not upon people who want to break the law to suddenly become law abiding. >> jon: what about the theaterics at that news conference, putting those kids on the stage behind him. rich lawrie, an occasional guest on this program wrote in the national review, barack obama set a new standard for stupidly exploittative white house events. >> i think that's really an unfair criticism. it was children who were killed at sandy hook, and it was children who had written to the president saying this is what we can do, can you do something? it was an emotional pitch, yes, it was against an organization as kirsten says owns the congress and i think it's fair game. >> jon: the l.a. times, jim called the president's production, big, bold and brassy.

>> right. of course, if it had been under reagan or bush 41 or 43 they would have called it deferesque, as in mike defer, would have said it was-- the showmanship and pageantry here part of television chug television news and can't complain about it too much, but it's situational when it's good when democrats do it, bad when republicans do it. >> jon: and then the nra ad that came out this week, and t the-- it blasts nbc news anchor david gregory as being sort of elitist and a hypocrite. what do you think, kirsten? >> well, i mean, the ad probably -- they're trying to this take approach anybody who wants to have gun laws is elitist, and it's a false paradigm that the nra is setting up. they need a new pr director, just for starters, because they're not doing a good job communicating their view. it's not elitism. people have different views about gbs and people have different views of whether you

need to have a weapon that can fire 60 rounds in a minute or not. whatever you call it. getting the terminology right isn't the point. the point is that there are a lot of americans who think you don't need to have that. >> jon: next on news watch, some big time failings of the news media on display. >> look what mommy's having, mommy's having a french fry, yes, she is, yes, she is. >> in every little bottle. gives you 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% annual bonus. and everyone but her likes 50% more cash, but i have an idea. do you want a princess dress? yes. cupcakes? yes. do you want an etch-a-sketch? yes! do you want 50% more cash? no. you got talent. [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on every purchase plus a 50% annual bonus on the cash you earn. it's the card for people who like more cash. what's in your wallet? i usually say that.

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>> i've seen the most beautiful girl i have ever met. not just for his physical beauty, but for the beauty of her character and who she is she was just that person that i turned to and even though she was fighting leukemia and you know, fighting various things she always found time to serve someone else and her biggest thing to me was always, always be humble, always be humble and keep god as my number one closest friend and as long as i strive to honor him, i'll be honoring her. and her whole thing was not

about herself, and that's why we were so close. >> jon: oh, boy, notre dame's star linebacker manti te'o, got all kinds of media attention, and his performance on the field and personal story getting him on the cover of sports illustrated, high profile coverage from other media outlets. all of that attention changed in tone once the website deadspin revealed the girlfriend never existed. the whole story was a hoax. so, did the mainstream media fail here, judy? >> well, i'm sorry, but this falls into, i know the journalism lesson if your mother says she loves you, check it out. but you would really have to be an awfully skeptical person to assume that this man's girlfriend did not exist. i don't think it would occur to a lot of editors to ask

their reporters is this so. >> jon: you're a reporter for a long time, did the press get bamboozled here? >> i want to confess to my longstanding relationship with tinker bell. look, it's called a telephone, you pick it up, you call if the person is in the hospital, call the pr person, do you have somebody who is is a patient in your hospital, by this name or can i talk to her, i'm the whatever, you look at the obit page if they've died. there are all kind of ways to check out this information, another one of those too good to be true things. >> jon: isn't that part of what happened here? the media wanted to believe the story. >> i'm sure they did, but i think a basic ask for an obituary and i'm surprised they didn't ask a for a picture of them together. if you're going to run a story, notice he said in that interview, when we met. which he's also said in interviews described how he met her, i'm not even buying the fact that he's been duped. >> right, because it's been

unclear about that. he indicated when the story broke that he had been duped by some nefarious people. >> right. >> jon: here is the the way the new york times put it. i could never imagining editing such a story, from joe secti sexton, asking them, did you know for a fact his grandmother is dead. do you know for a fact his girlfriend is dead, do you know for a fact that his grandmother existed or girlfriend existed. and anyone who tells you they would, questions is kidding you. and not one reporter did the-- the lack of leg work is a total surprise to me. >> having seen the press's adulation for lance armstrong and tiger woods, not only is the press, the sorry too good, but the machine of money and

wealth. not only do people get rich endorsings things as athletes, but the reporters who are experts on them get rich being expert commenttators on the person. the last thing the people doing the file in sports illustrated was tear him down. if he went of, they would have gone with them. >> i have to totally disagree. at usa today we have fact checkers, when i write a column, there is a fact checker, a person goes through my column and asks me, i have to footnote everything that i say, no way on earth i could say somebody has died without any any sort of-- >> and maybe a better standards and sports illustrated. >> one speculation, staffs are cut back all over the country and not enough people, but if you've got one person in an office that can pick up the telephone and fact check. >> and also google. >> he speaking of fact checking, "the washington post" got caught in a bit of plagiarism this week, a reporter named william booth, is that, do i have the name right, william booth admitted

lifting some sentences from an academic journal. judy? >> i think that in an era of cut and paste journalism where we often times do our research, we don't have those researchers anymore, we do our own, and you take material from one journal and put it on a screen, you sometimes forget to attribute. i want to give the reporter the benefit of the doubt on this one. >> i agree with that. >> jon: and what did we learn from the president's press conference this week? >> mr. obama gives the press another chance to ask tough questions, did they hit him hard? and inauguration day is here, will the media love fest continue? . that's next on news watch. in . in a first of its kind partnership with walmart, humana medicare plans now include 5% savings on great for you healthier foods at walmart!

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>> what chuck and i and many people are curious about this new adamant desire to not negotiate that seems to conflict with the modern era of presidents and the history of the debt ceiling and your own history with the debt ceiling and doesn't that suggest we're going into a default because no one is talking to each other how to resolve this? >> no, major, i think if you look at the history, getting votes for the debt ceiling is always difficult. >> jon: president obama a little testy there answering a question from cbs news white house correspondent major garrett, formerly of this network. it was mr. obama's final news conference of his first term. so, what did you think, judy, about the questions that the president received? only seven of them for a news conference. the answers went on very long. >> you might even say stonewalling answers, each answer was roughly the equivalent of about seven and

a half minutes. no wonder there's no time for follow-ups. look, the white house press corps, how many times do we have to talk about it. other than major garrett, who was a sight to see there, even jake tapper said, oh, yes, major always asks good questions, when he was on fox we didn't call on him much. that's what this is about. the white house press corps has to be more skeptical. >> and partially a technical plight. one way he filibusters or runs out the clock, change the way the mic would be, they used to be shotgun mics and now they pass down the aisle, it looks like a high school deal and you don't get the follow-up questions. two or three follow-ups you didn't hear and only heard the president's answers. >> and university of minnesota put together a piece, fox still shunned at fox press conferences, a smart analysis,

says that abc reporters called on the most frequently followed by cbs, associated press and nbc with fox news coming in at a distant 9th in less than half of the rates of the top outlets, less than 40% of the press conferences overall. why does the president not like to call on them? >> because he doesn't want to be embarrassed, really. because when he's asked a question, the same way, you know, when ed henry asks questions in the-- jay carney, inevitably jay carney ends up looking stupid because he doesn't know how to answer the question and use today pushing people around and you know, it will be tenacious and get asked about something he doesn't want to get asked about and he wants softballs. >> jon: story to interrupt you, after that press conferences washington post gave mr. obama a rare upside down pinochio. >> that's a brave voice, if you deal with those kinds of criticisms with the liberal mainstream media then of

course the answers are seven or eight minutes long and you don't want many questions, but as fred barnes wrote in the weekly standard, a four year press honeymoon and now looks like it will be an eight year press honeymoon. >> jon: we've got the inauguration coming on monday, and judy is rolling her eyes as i phrase the question. how is that going to be covered? can you see the headlines now? >> i think we're going to have more of the same. i think what disturbs some of us is the double standard, if this president does something, if he kills people from 300 feet with a drone, if he draws up lists of americans who can be killed, it's fine, nobody says anything. if george bush did it,ed world would be coming to an end. >> water boarding was evil, but killing them is okay. >> jon: and next on news watch, do big public apologies really make a difference? and cut! very good. people are always asking me how we make these geico adverts. so we're taking you behind the scenes. this coffee cup, for example, is computer animated.

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yes or no, in all seven of your tour de france victories did you ever take banned substances or dope? >> yes. >> jon: decades of deception and denial he admitted doping using performed than enhancers to win competitions at all cost. his public admission following other high profile admissions, tiger woods telling the world about his sex addiction. he returned to golf making millions and n.f.l. quarterback michael vick, publicly apologizing for his mistreatment of dogs.

vick returned to play in the n.f.l. after jail time also making millions. actor turned california governor airing out dirty laundering fathering a child with one of one of his workers, he is back to making movies and bill clinton for misleading the people admitting encounters with monica lewinsky. propping up the democratic party making appearances and making millions. so what about lance armstrong? is it rosie for him now? >> he moved he was a sociopath and i looked up cheating in the dictionary and i wasn't. hats off to oprah, that was a good tough interview, boom, boom boom, yes or no. exactly armstrong clearly wasn't ready. >> i think lance armstrong has exceeded by date. it was so obvious what he had done and jodie foster

acknowledging she is lesbian, oh waited, that is what happened. >> oprah. >> jon: all right. >> gore vidal we're the united states of amnesia, americans are forgiving type. are we going to forgive and forget. >> i feel the problem with lance armstrong is vehement denials and accusations against other people and it crosses the line a little bit with lot of people. >> lots of lawsuits. he has hundred million dollars, that is a deep pocket for somebody. >> the interview was just weird. when he said, all the critics like, i called her a liar but i didn't call her that. >> oprah loved that one. >> jon: and he talked about that generation as though it was some long ago era. [ laughter ] >> jon: it was bizarre. >>